The Economy

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📉 CEOs lose confidence

Data: The Conference Board and The Business Council. Chart: Emily Peck/Axios CEOs of the world's biggest companies lost confidence in the economy this month as the Iran war drags on, Axios' Emily Peck writes from a new survey of 141 Fortune Global 500 chief executives. Why it matters: Business leaders who lack confidence tend to pull back on hiring and investment, weighing down the economy. 🧮 By the numbers: CEO confidence fell 12 points since February to 47, according to the survey from The Conference Board, a nonpartisan think tank, and The Business Council, an association of CEOs. 47% of CEOs said economic conditions were worse, up from 8% at the start of the year. Only 15% said conditions were better than six months ago, down from 39% in February.

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💼 An economic tinderbox

Data: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Chart: Matt Phillips/Axios Corporate profits are taking the largest chunk of America's total income since a brief period of the early 1950s, as the slice of the pie going to worker pay has shrunk to the thinnest on record, Axios' Matt Phillips writes. Data: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Chart: Matt Phillips/Axios The big picture: "It's the latest milestone in a trend that became pronounced in the 2000s, then picked up speed after the pandemic," noted Wall Street Journal chief economics commentator Greg Ip (gift link). "Adjusted for inflation, hourly wages are up 3% since the end of 2019 while profits are up 50%. That, in a nutshell, explains the chasm between an ebullient stock market and anxious public."

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📈 Job openings rebound, but hiring cools

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Chart: Courtenay Brown/Axios Job openings soared to their highest level in two years in April, Courtenay Brown reports from new federal data. It's a sign that employers' appetite to hire is improving — even if they aren't quite lowering the gangway for mass recruitment. By the numbers: Job openings surged by 731,000 in April, their biggest monthly gain in five years. 👩‍💻 White-collar job postings accounted for most of the surge. That's a signal that AI isn't sapping demand for traditional office workers. 📉 Yes, but: The hiring rate fell 0.3 percentage points, to 3.2%. Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a note: "The hiring rate is still low, but at least companies appear to be hunting for talent again." Go deeper.

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💼 Career ladder's disappearing rung

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Economists are looking for clues that AI is eliminating jobs for young workers. Two new papers suggest a different culprit: remote work, Axios' Courtenay Brown writes. Why it matters: Young workers' white-collar job woes might stem from the massive, pandemic-era shift in how Americans work. Any AI-related impacts are landing on top of that upheaval. New research — separately from the New York Fed and a group of British economists — suggests employers may be shying away from inexperienced workers, believing that remote work makes training harder. The Fed economists estimate that remote work accounts for roughly 64% of the rise in youth unemployment since the pandemic.

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Myths vs. facts about the minimum wage

For nearly 90 years, the minimum wage has been one of the core labor standards shaping job quality for workers in the United States. Since the 1938 enactment of the federal minimum wage as a core pillar of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), policymakers in Congress and later in dozens of states, cities, and counties, have adopted hundreds of minimum wage policies—setting wage floors across and within industries, at varying levels of geography (national, state, and local), and applying in different ways to different groups of workers and employers. This abundance of experience across a wide range of jurisdictions and industries has provided ample opportunity to understand how minimum wage policies—and the failure to adjust them—affect workers, employers, and the economy. Debates surrounding the minimum wage have also generated consistent and pervasive myths about the policy. These are the facts:

https://www.epi.org/publication/myths-vs-facts-about-the-minimum-wage-an-faq-on-the-economics-of-increasing-wage-floors/

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• 💼 The U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs in May, while the unemployment rate held at 4.3%, confirming that the economy is gaining momentum despite the economic fallout from the Iran war, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.